Saturday, October 29, 2005

Dodger Blue Skies

For those who are neither baseball fans or do not, as our family does, bleed Dodger blue, please feel free to ignore this post...

Finally! The current Dodger owner Frank McCourt shows some sense and fires the incompetent Paul DePodesta. I thought Kevin Malone was bad, but De Podesta takes the prize as the worst general manager in the last 50 years.

Trading Paul Lo Duca and Guillermo Mota showed a spectactular failure of judgment and a fundamtental ignorance of the importance of team chemistry. Worse, De Podesta was beyond foolish in signing often hurt players such as J.D. Drew and Derek Lowe to long term contracts--and thinking you can have two hot heads (Milton Bradley and Jeff Kent) on the same team at the same time.

McCourt needs to do several more things:

1. Clean out the roster of most of these veterans, biting the bullet on the De Podesta-big contracts by trading for young players, including guys ready to come up from AAA farm leagues.

2. Immediately hire the "Bulldog" Orel Hershiser. The Bulldog will get the young guys excited and excitement by players means plenty of grit--and pleasant surprises, even if there is not as many immediate wins.

3. Hire a true traditional baseball oriented general manager Hershiser approves of and wants to work under; and THEN:

4. Like George Steinbrenner, get out of the way and show up in a few years for a major league baseball championship or at least a National League championship.

AS a Giants fan, I'm sorry to see Dipodesta go. I am a fan of Bill James, but not necessarily a fan of "moneyball". I do believe in the value of direct observation in all endeavors. Moneyball was bringing in all these number cruncher types who knew very little about baseball first hand. Dipodesta was from that school of general managerhood.

One thing I find interesting is that Kenny Williams was made out to be Beane's ready "victim" in Moneyball. The White Sox seem to have done just fine.

The one thing worse than the Giants narrowly losing out to the Dodgers is to see a team as unmemorable as the Padres represent the NL west.

About Me

My day-job: Attorney. I am also a husband, father, and writer.
I am the author of an alternative history novel, "A Disturbance of Fate" (Seven Locks, 2003), which is about Robert F. Kennedy surviving 1968 and becoming president. The book received endorsements from historians, writers, and political advisers who worked with RFK. It received a "starred" review from Publisher's Weekly and was a finalist for best alternative history (the Sidewise Award) in 2004. The novel may be purchased at Powell's, Amazon, or, as they say, "other fine bookstores."
Email: mitchellfreedman at yahoo.com